


Claude's Story (3)

by pallasite



Series: Behind the Gloves [52]
Category: Babylon 5, Babylon 5 & Related Fandoms
Genre: Abduction, Backstory, Bester's parents were terrible people who did terrible things, Canon Compliant, Fix-It, Gen, Human Trafficking, Kidnapping, Psi Cops, Psi Corps, Rescue, Sacrifice, The Corps Was Right, The Psi Corps tag is mine, Violence, Worldbuilding, impossible choices, telepaths, undercover cop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-08
Updated: 2017-05-08
Packaged: 2018-10-29 11:34:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10853160
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pallasite/pseuds/pallasite
Summary: The Corps uncovers an international plot to sell telepath youth into slavery, and a brave young Psi Cop must go undercover to stop it.Part 1 ishere. Part 2 ishere.This is all in canon - I'm just retelling the story from the Psi Cop's point of view.The prologue ofBehind the Glovesishere- please read!





	Claude's Story (3)

**Author's Note:**

> What is this series? Where are the acknowledgements, table of contents and universe timelines? See [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/10184558/chapters/22620590).
> 
> If you like _Behind the Gloves_ and would like to send me an email, I can be reached at counterintuitive at protonmail dot com.

As soon as the Dexters and D'Augila are gone, the other guards show up. The pause only momentarily - seeing the mutilated bodies in the corridor - before opening fire.

Heckman dives for cover behind some kind of cart - it doesn't actually offer any protection, but the guards are all shooting for Walters, anyway. He's the one standing there holding a fucking automatic weapon.

And he uses it again, mowing the guards down like the first wave, and only taking so much as a scratch on one of his arms from a bullet that went stray. The guards were aiming for his chest, but he's still wearing the body armor. Heckman wonders what it's made of, and where he can get some.

The remains of six bodies are now sprawled out on the floor and walls. Walters reloads.

Heckman sees the others approaching, and they have the four kidnapped teeps with them - two dark-skinned girls of about twelve - twins? they look like twins - one small red-haired boy of about five, and a thin blonde white woman in her early twenties. Their minds are all numb, their eyes glazed over. They've been drugged - and with sleepers.

Walters notices the cut on his arm and starts cursing.

"Children?" Heckman asks. He didn't expect to see a child as young as that boy. He finds it bitterly ironic that the leaders of the same gang that kidnapped that boy in the first place are now trying to free him from the clutches of a different gang.

"We have to get out," says Matthew Dexter. "You, D'Augila-" he points, "which way?"

"The rest of this level is storage. The elevator is across the warehouses."

"Lead."

Suddenly the stairwell doors bang open, and two objects bounce out... small and round.

_Oh my god, grenades!_

Fiona Dexter shrieks for her husband, Walters pushes her down, and Heckman dives in front of the kids, to shelter them from the blast.

But the blast doesn't come. There is a faint hissing sound. Matthew is running.

"Gas! Go!"

They run down the hall, take a sharp left before the worst of the carnage, and zig zag through the labyrinthine storage level, with Matthew Dexter and D'Augila at the front, Walters bringing up the rear, and the others sandwiched in the middle. Fiona Dexter is encouraging the kids to run faster - Heckman picks up the little boy and carries him. They race through a large warehouse and over to a small elevator - D'Augila's access card still works, miraculously, and they stuff themselves into the elevator and head for the roof. When the door opens, Heckman sees the pad is empty, save for a single chopper, far off.

"Can anyone here fly a chopper?" he asks, stupidly. "I mean, you do intend to steal the chopper, I assume?"

He can't believe how inept he sounds. This is all wrong - all, all wrong.

Once they reach the chopper, they'll need the codes to activate it, and there's no way any of them could have those codes.

Hell, once they step out of the elevator, they'll be in plain sight. Anyone can shoot them, anyone can see them and attack them telepathically.

"Run!" shouts Fiona, pushing the kids out of the elevator and onto the chopper pad.

They get halfway to the chopper when the bullets start flying again.

Walters flattens himself on the concrete and returns fire in the direction it's coming from. Snipers, Heckman sees, as he flattens himself near Walters. Snipers from windows in nearby buildings of the Rentech complex.

_Shit. This is gonna be all over the news._

Mathew Dexter is on Walters' other side, shooting his pistol, reloading, and firing again. Just as it seems they've taken out the snipers, fire comes from behind them. Heckman spins around to see three more guards, carrying what look like Naga nine millimeter submachine guns, crouching behind an antenna complex on the other side of the roof. They've got helmets on, and heavy body armor.

Fiona kneels and fires off a round. _Get 'em in the chopper, Psi Cop!_ she 'casts. _We'll be there when we can!_

_You won't make it! And I can't fly this thing!_

_None of us will make it without cover fire! Go!_

It's suicide, he knows. But he grabs the four kidnapped teeps - one of the twins by one hand, the little boy in the other - and heads for the helicopter, praying the guards won't shoot at kids.

He's right - they ignore him and aim for the three rogues instead. It buys him a few seconds. He desperately searches the controls of the chopper for a link - maybe, he figures, he can call the Corps for help. But he can't find one. The battle rages outside, as the rogues fight the guards at the antenna, and then a fresh batch of guards comes out of the elevator. He tries to strike the guards telepathically, but finds that the real fight is far more chaotic than any training exercises back at school. This is no drill. He panics. He's never before fought people who were actually trying to kill him, never tried to concentrate against the backdrop of live fire.

His heart pounds, his breath comes in short bursts. The kidnapped teeps are panicking, too - and they're on sleepers, maybe more. They're in a state of shock.

 _Fuck it,_ he thinks, _I'm a Psi Cop, they gave me that Metapol badge, I have to do something_.

And he doesn't even know how he does it. All he knows is that somehow, before everyone is blown to pieces, he's able to get the chopper powered up, and _holy hell , why is this chopper armed?_

It doesn't matter - he aims for the antenna array and fires the grenade launcher, sending the whole array up in ball of white fire and black smoke.

That's it, he thinks, they're taking my badge now, for sure. He has no idea what he's going to tell the Corps when he gets back - if he gets back - but for the moment, they're all still alive.

Fiona Dexter does, in fact, know how to fly the chopper. The rogues leave D'Augila to his fate on the roof, surrounded by over a dozen dead guards, some of them not more than charred remains. They fly in silence, Heckman lost in thought wondering how he got himself into this situation and what he's going to tell the Corps if he makes it back. Fiona puts the chopper down in the Atchafalaya Swamp -  _the fucking swamp_ \- then hotwires a battered Volkswagen truck from a used car lot. Matthew drives, Stephen rides shotgun (literally), and Fiona and the others pile in the back. She checks the kids for wounds.

Heckman hates to admit it, but he knows these rogues would make damn fine Psi Cops. He knows the deal - if you rate P12, they give you a badge and a uniform and a gun, and if you're lucky, more than basic training. Competence isn't part of the equation. Some Psi Cops get desk jobs, but those out in the field are lucky if they live to see thirty. Heckman wonders if he'll see twenty-six.

"We'd make a good team," Heckman finds himself saying aloud. "I rate you to be a P12, like me. You'd make one hell of a Psi Cop."

"Say that again, and I'll open you another set of eyes." She's smiling, but not because she's joking. She'd really enjoy shooting him, he knows, but for the moment, he's still more useful alive.

He shrugs, resignedly. "What now, then?"

"First, I thank you for saving our lives back there. After that, you tell us which other Rentech installations have teeps."

"Most of them aren't at Rentech sites," he says. "Rentech's the clearinghouse. They're rented out, sold to private citizens, to criminal syndicates, kula rings, you name it."

"But you know how to get the records of those sales."

"Yes I do. Or, well, I did, back at Rentech."

"I want them."

"Why? So you can fight a war on two fronts? One against Psi Corps, the other against Rentech? Maybe even a third war against the middlemen - all the gangs trafficking these teeps? I doubt you have the resources for that."

"You have no idea what we have. We'll do it."

"I know more than you think. Rentech was one of your allies. You worked with them for years. And now you expect me to believe you didn't wonder where all those kids ended up? You expect me to believe you're so good at what you do, yet you didn't notice them selling of _one third_ of the kids you gave them to so-called 'rescue?'"

"We thought the Corps was doing it."

"Oh, sure. Trust me, when the Corps comes for you, you'll know it. I suggest you rethink your strategy. Maybe examine all of the 'friends' of the Underground more carefully. Once you start turning over these rocks, you never know what you'll find. You're as rotten as your friends, and one day you'll be swept away like a snake in a thornbush."

"Give me the locations."

"I won't."

Fiona snorts. "Oh, yes you will."

"No, I won't. What kind of life can you offer these kids? Always on the run, at risk of this same thing happening again? I know what you do. I know the life you call 'freedom.' You shuttle these kids from so-called safehouse to safehouse. You hide them in underground bunkers for months, maybe years at a time. They don't go to school. They don't see the outside world. They don't watch television or listen to the radio or read the 'nets. They eat what you give them, wear what you give them. And you teach them to worship you. You keep them isolated until Stockholm Syndrome sets in and they're willing to pick up a weapon and die for your 'cause.' Freedom, huh? You call that freedom? They barely see the light of day!"

"Shut up!"

"And normals aren't any better. You think Rentech's the only one selling teeps? Oh no, sweetheart, teep kids are good business, and that's not going to change. We can take Rentech down, but in a few years someone else will fill the slot. And around it goes. I was raised by normals. I know they're not all like that, but most don't care enough to do a thing about it. And I wish it weren't so, but there's far too many of them like those guys at Rentech, ready to make us into their next batch of profitable victims. We teeps have to stick together, and that's the Corps."

"With Psi Corps we'll never be anything but slaves."

He shook his head. "Slaves? Bullshit. I pity you if you really believe that. No really, I do. I pity the children even more... feeding them those lies, poisoning their minds. This is what we Psi Cops do - protect teeps. Or did you miss what just happened back there?" He pointed. "Wake up! Normals hate us! They're the ones enslaving us! And they'll never see us as anything but something to use for their own ends. Slaves? Slavery's what we just saved these kids from, unless you weren't paying attention. These kids get sold to organized crime! To wealthy men who pay to rape them! Shit, what's wrong with you people? Psi Corps is the only place we can be safe and free. I won't give you the locations."

"We'll tear them out of you."

"You would do that to one of your own kind? Then everything they said about you fanatics is true."

"Look - what's your name?"

"Heckman. Claude Heckman."

"Claude, I've been in the camps. I've seen what the sleepers do. I know what Psi Corps is, and I want no part of it. You can't see it because they brainwashed you. You're a good little soldier. But don't expect me to buy any of it, okay? You take away people's most basic human rights, and that opens the door to the kind of crap Rentech is doing. Nobody cares because teeps have no rights, and Psi Corps keeps it that way, makes it okay."

"We didn't take away anyone's rights. And if you care so much about the rights of teeps, why do you kill teeps? And why am I arguing this with you?" He feels his face flush red with anger. "Look, Psi Corps cares. I was almost killed proving that." He raised his chin toward the sleeping children. "You talk about freedom? Ask them which they want. The so-called freedom to be abused - or to be protected, cared about, among their own kind. You think it's just a slogan, don't you, that the Corps is Mother and Father?"

"I'm not arguing this with you."

"Good. See if I care. What will you do with me? After you fry my brain?"

Fiona watches the thick-footed rows of cypress go by for a while without answering.

"Here's the deal," she finally says. "You give us the locations for half and keep half. We hold on to you long enough to be sure you told us the truth, then we let you go be a good little soldier some more. Half for us, half for Psi Corps. If you don't like that, we tear it out of your head and finish you off with a bullet."

"You're a monster. You're asking me to willingly hand over my children - all teep children are our children! - you're asking me to hand them over to your 'resistance' death cult. So you can train them up to be terrorists. Or do you think I don't know about the bombing of Seattle?"

"Your choice. I don't normally make deals with Psi Cops, but I'm feeling nice today. Take it before I stop feeling so nice."

He watches the trees go by. It is unthinkable, what she is asking. He looks at the children and young woman in the back of the truck with them - still groggy, only partially aware of their surroundings. He thinks about their parents, their grandparents, their sisters and brothers. He realizes with a sinking feeling that he has just helped these rogue monsters take these innocent young people captive, too.

He remembers a story he heard once, somewhere, about a woman at a concentration camp, back during the Holocaust, forced to choose which of her children lives, and which dies. That he is not morally culpable for the nightmare doesn't mean it weighs on him any less.

"It's a mistake," he says, finally. "But you've left me no choice."

True to her word, she doesn't ask for the other half. They hold him at gunpoint at one of their "safehouses" for a few days, and then drop him off on the side of the road, somewhere in Louisiana, with nothing but the clothes on his back. He doesn't know where he is, but at last he is free of those monsters.

He reminds himself that he's survived, against all odds. That these are the same vermin who kidnapped [Remy Ligeau](http://archiveofourown.org/works/10827156), and murdered half the Corps' local office in doing so. The same people who just poisoned Seattle.

Somehow, he vows, whatever it takes, the Corps will bring those children home.

**Author's Note:**

> How they survive on the helipad - with no cover - is never explained in canon, and doesn't make a lot of sense, especially since the guys with the body armor are described as firing in "controlled, professional bursts." Then again, they never explain how it is that a pharmaceutical company has its own on-call sniper squad and SWAT team.
> 
> The short answer is "the rogues live, because they're needed later in the plot."
> 
> I can explain why Psi Cops in this period are often inept. I can explain why they hold their fire in the Dexter Raid, even as they're being shot at. I can even explain why Claude [doesn't kill anyone with his brain](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ForgotAboutHisPowers?from=Main.PlotInducedStupidity)... except not why he doesn't kill his captors in the beginning. (The drugs, maybe? Even though I made up the drugs to cover for the Idiot Ball in his pocket?)
> 
> This stuff was all written in canon for "dramatic effect," but there _are_ in-universe explanations. I can't do much about "why everyone shooting at the Dexters + Walters misses, when they're right out in the open," however.
> 
> Rentech gives its henchman contract to the lowest bidders. I dunno.
> 
> There are bigger canon holes to patch later on.
> 
> There's also no explanation for how Claude gets the helicopter powered up _and suddenly has grenades to fling at baddies_ \- canon writes this as "yay, the Dexters were saved in the nick of time by an unlikely source!" and I write it as "yay, Claude finally has something useful to do in this story, because the chopper is made of [Deus ex Machina](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DeusExMachina)!" Maybe I'll borrow from Anne McCaffrey and give him "telekinesis under pressure" powers. After all, you don't know you have them until you're under pressure.


End file.
